Test Bank for Macroeconomics, 5th Edition, Paul Krugman, Robin Wells,

Test Bank for Macroeconomics, 5th Edition,

Paul Krugman, Robin Wells

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macroeconomics-5th-edition-paul-krugman-robin-wells/

1. Which topic is studied in macroeconomics?

A) the change in automobile sales due to a change in the price of automobiles
B) the effect of a tax reduction on the profits of an individual business
C) recessions
D) the unemployment of workers displaced by technological change in the typesetting
industry

2. The basic concern of microeconomics is to:

A) keep business firms from losing money.
B) prove that capitalism is better than socialism.
C) study the choices people make.
D) use unlimited resources to produce goods and services to satisfy limited wants.

3. How people choose among the alternatives available to them is:

A) not part of the study of economics.
B) impossible to describe.
C) the study of microeconomics.
D) not important in the study of microeconomics.

4. Scarcity in economics means that:

A) we often do not have sufficient resources to achieve our objectives.
B) the wants of people are limited.
C) there must be poor people in rich countries.
D) shortages exist in nearly all markets.

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 5. If resources are scarce, it means that they:
A) are insufficient to provide enough goods and services to satisfy all human material
wants and needs.
B) have no opportunity cost.
C) are probably not valued by consumers.
D) have an unlimited supply.

6. A central and fundamental theme in economics is that:

A) wants are limited.
B) the United States is a rich country, but we are simply not aware of it.
C) people have unlimited wants but limited means to satisfy them.
D) resources are unlimited.

7. The problem of scarcity is confronted by:

A) industrialized societies only.
B) preindustrial societies only.
C) societies governed by communist philosophies only.
D) all societies.

8. When we are forced to make choices, we are facing the concept of:
A) human capital.
B) inflation.
C) scarcity.
D) market failure.

9. We are forced to make choices because of:

A) exploitation.
B) efficiency.
C) scarcity.
D) the margin.

10. Scarcity exists when:

A) making choices among two or more alternatives is not necessary.
B) individuals can have more of any good without giving up anything.
C) individuals can have more of one good but only by giving up something else.
D) resources are unlimited.

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11. Although freshwater is very abundant in most places, it is scarce because:
A) it has no alternative uses.
B) there is not enough of it to meet all needs.
C) it is a free good.
D) scarce goods in general are not all that costly.

12. Freshwater is considered a scarce good because:

A) not enough of it is available for all needs.
B) it does not have any uses.
C) scarce goods are not expensive.
D) not enough of it is available for all needs and because it is not expensive.

13. The problem of determining what goods and services society should produce:
A) exists because we can produce more than we need or want.
B) exists because there are not enough resources to provide all of the goods and
services that people want.
C) would not exist if all goods and services were scarce.
D) would not exist if government owned all of the resources.

14. Which resource is NOT one that pertains to the production of rice?
A) fertile land
B) labor
C) capital equipment
D) money

15. A resource is anything that:

A) can be used in production.
B) you pay for.
C) is in scarce supply.
D) can be consumed.

16. We have to make choices because:

A) we have unlimited income.
B) resources are scarce.
C) resources are infinite.
D) with good planning, trade-offs can be avoided.

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 Another random document
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“Ah, that’s better,” Blynn smiled.
“And why, mon capitaine,” she smiled back, “may I not sit on the floor?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he explained. “It’s—legs. I’ve discovered something
about you.” He spoke with exaggerated jocularity. “When I see your
underpinnings, I know I am talking to a child, aged thirteen, who looks
upon me as a grandfather; but when you squat on the floor and look up at
me like a little coquette”—his tone was that of pure banter—“I get the
craziest notion possible into my head, that you have grown up and—that
you are sitting there quietly laughing at all my tedious explanation, and well
—you know, you fooled me completely that day on the tennis-courts. I
could have sworn you were at least twenty-two.”
“Why do you need—to treat me—differently?”
Her eyes rested on him now with quiet gravity. They looked into him and
seemed to explore his very mind. This child had been schooled all her life
to mask her feelings until few suspected she was capable of any. In this
confident hour she unmasked and let him see without shame that he was her
capitaine, under whom she would serve right loyally. Youth and
faithfulness! Blynn could see all that, too, in her eyes; and perhaps
something else, which disturbed him and caused him to come to instant
decision.
“Do you know, young lady,” he broke the spell of the silence abruptly, “that
in October you are going to the Misses Warren’s Select French and English
School for Young Ladies?”
“No!” she stood up. “I won’t go. Who said I must go? That hateful place?
Why, everybody makes fun of it. It—it would be torture. I won’t go! Please,
Mr. Blynn, don’t let them send me there.”
“But you must go somewhere,” he soothed. “I’ve been inquiring. They’ve
made a number of changes since the death of the elder sister. It’s really
quite a decent place now. What you need is not book education, but social
education.”
“What!”
“I put that badly. I mean you should mix more with your own generation.
There are girls who—”
“Girls! I don’t want to know any. Most of them are just simpletons,
smirking at boys. Boys! boys! boys! That’s their whole talk. They aren’t
interested in books or anything. I tell you, I couldn’t stand being all day
with girls. I couldn’t breathe. I—”
“Now, steady,” he calmed her. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t
want to do. That’s a bargain; isn’t it? No Warren business, if you don’t like
it. Remember, you’re going to do as you like.”
“Yes,” she said more calmly; but all the rebellion in her was stirring.
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t worked out the plan yet. The Warren school
is—well, I’m thinking about it. I’ve been looking into the School of
Applied Arts, too.”
“That’s more like it,” she was blinking hard.
“You see,” he showed her his perplexity. “You and I aren’t getting
anywhere. We just sit around and talk and talk—at least, I do—”
“But that’s the joy of it,” she was astonished at his sudden dullness. “Don’t
you like our—talks?”
“Bless my soul, yes! They’re great! You bring me out; make me think of
things I didn’t know I knew. Enjoy it? Jerusalem! But your mother thinks I
am teaching you things—”
“Why, you are,” her eyes grew wide. “Every day I learn lots from you. I
can’t give you up, Mr. Blynn. Why, we have the most beautiful pow-wows.
Nobody else really talks to me. Look,” she picked up the Browning, “you
have given me Andrea today; I never could have gotten it myself. And I’m
just nervous thinking of more you will give me. Don’t—don’t—send me
off, just when we were—. It’s mean!” she quavered, stamping her foot in
vexation, for she had prided herself on not being a weeping person, and
lately the tears were swelling on the flimsiest provocation.
But he was firm about regular school and took pains to make his reasons
clear to her. His scheme for her—which gradually began to form as he
talked—was special hours at Miss Warren’s in German and French. They
had a new Swiss teacher there who had a splendid bi-lingual training. She
would also get music, mathematics and Latin. Once or twice a week she
would take the metal classes in the School of Applied Arts. The Italian she
would have to keep up by reading, for awhile at least.
“But English literature?” she protested. “Aren’t you going to keep on with
your readings? Why, we’ve hardly begun!”
“Perhaps,” he held out. “Some of it I will surely do; perhaps I’ll arrange a
little class with your sister and Betty Sommers.”
“That will not be so nice,” she admitted. “But,” with seeming understanding
of the expression that swept across his face, “if you think it best, mon
capitaine, I’ll give them a share.”
Youth and faithfulness shone in her eyes again; and the frankness of
childhood.
He collected his belongings, borrowed a book from her shelf and prepared
to go.
“There!” she said. “I knew we had forgotten something. That horrid school
thing hopped in between and spoiled it all.” She held the Browning open to
“Andrea del Sarto.” “You were telling me your theory about married
people, and why they don’t—keep on—keep on—”
“Oh, yes,” he helped. “Well, my theory is a very simple one. There is no
patent on it, but no one seems to want to use it.” He knitted his brows and
looked afar off. “I think young people ought to prepare ahead of time for all
that’s to follow. They get lost in the beginnings—for there are beginnings,
and there are middles and ends, each is different. They ought to prepare
themselves to go on from one stage of affection into another, without
surprise or suspicion of each other. And better, they should study all the
little paths that tend to take them apart. Therefore, they should cultivate
many of the same interests, insist upon having many associations together,
and refuse to let a separate set of occupations absorb them too much—like
housekeeping or whist playing for the woman, and selling cheeses, let us
say, for the man. Memory is the thing that binds one’s life together; married
people should see to it that they have many, many beautiful memories in
common. There! that’s a long speech; and it’s my theory. There must be a
flaw in it somewhere, or more folks would have adopted it. I have faith in it
—I have faith, you notice, in all my theories. One should. If ever I have the
chance to try it out, I’ll do my best to make it work.”
“It will work,” she said simply.
“That’s encouraging, now,” he laughed. “What makes you think so?”
“My theory is that the woman is always willing to have memories, the kind
you speak of. It is the man who flies off to his own affairs and leaves her to
just dig along.”
“Ah! Amazonian,” he cried. “That’s out of Gardiner!”
“No,” quietly. “I have been watching my neighbors, that’s all. Men are
awfully excited about men-things. I don’t blame them. They do have lots of
fun, boys and men.... But you will make it work, all right.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she thought, “you will try; and then you aren’t at all interested in
yourself—No! you aren’t—You are always thinking of somebody else. I’ve
watched you—”
“Oh!” he cried, “you’ll make me self-conscious.”
“Often, I’ve watched you. I notice that your eye is always looking to see
what other persons need. You get chairs before other men notice they are
wanted, and you open doors, and pass things before they’re asked for, and
all that sort of thing.... And, you understand—”
“Understand?”
“Yes; you understand ... you understand—me, for instance.”
They looked at each other a quiet second or two.
“I wonder if I do,” he said, trying to smile like a grandfather.
They walked across the hall into the library.
“Oh, you know all about little me,” she laughed, and shook her head as if it
were a doleful burden.
 IX
“BONG-JOUR”

THE winter was spent for Gorgas pretty much as Blynn had planned. She
was entered as a pupil in the Misses Warren Select French and English
School for Young Ladies; but the desertion from freedom was not made
easily; nor was it ever entirely successful. Gorgas was the vagabond type. In
literature Vagabondia has its charming unconventional men, but seldom if
ever has the female of this species been put forward without shocking
sensitive souls. The unconventional woman is—well, no better than she
should be. Somehow the world has worshipped its men when they step forth
from its fetters of use and wont, but it looks terribly askance at women of
equal daring.
On the morning of the opening of school Gorgas rode solemnly on Gyp,
without even the “shining morning face” of Shakespeare’s famous reluctant
schoolboy. She was full of forebodings of coming disaster. Professor Blynn,
her capitaine, had said, go; that was the sole impelling force. She knew that
she could not turn back without distressing him; he it was who had taken
the rebellious untamed forces of her little life and had bound them both with
and against her will. It was terrible, this bowing to the decisions of another;
terrible and unutterably satisfying! She pondered on this contradictory fact
as she let Gyp trot forward; upon the convicting desires that found
reasonable lodgment in her mind: the desire to turn Gyp’s head right about
for a canter toward Bardek and Cresheim Valley, and the greater wish to
obey the will of another, to plod straight forward and suffer the pangs of a
strange schooldom. Her conscience had a fine glow of satisfaction with
each step toward the disagreeable adventure.
Miss Warren saw her from the window.
“Surely that is not one of our new girls?” she exclaimed to the secretary.
Both drew aside the heavy lace curtains, discreetly keeping themselves at a
polite distance in the shadows.
“It is Gorgas Levering,” the secretary replied.
“But she is riding astride!” Miss Warren looked helplessly about. “Like a
man!” she added. “Mercy! Do go out and tell her—”
But Gorgas cut that command short by dismounting—like a man. She was
leading Gyp toward the stables, one arm over the horse’s mane, her head
erect, her eyes focused far away. At that moment she was enjoying a
childlike delight in successful martyrdom. As she passed around the school
—really a fine old Colonial mansion—she came face to face with Miss
Warren framed in a massive side door.
“You are Miss Gorgas Levering, I presume?” Miss Warren made the
statement with disarming graciousness.
“Miss Warren!” Gorgas ejaculated.
The child was startled by the apparition, conjuring up the photograph on
Keyser’s dressing-table, that now spoke in the flesh, like an ancient figure
in history suddenly come to life; and her spirits oozed. The regality of this
distinguished-looking woman struck at her and took away her sense of
equality. In the presence of Miss Warren one had always to struggle against
an overwhelming feeling of personal inferiority.
“I am so glad you have come early,” Miss Warren ignored the exclamation.
“Perhaps you would like to come in and freshen yourself after your ride.”
Miss Warren’s attire was spotless. Without a further word Gorgas realized
that there was something vulgar and unclean in riding a horse. She became
conscious of her dusty appearance and of Gyp’s warm, sweaty body.
“Home, Gyp,” she said, and turned his head about and patted him smartly
on the flank. Gyp trotted off alone.
Miss Warren took in the unconventional attire.
“You are wearing—uh—bloomers; are you not?” she asked in a
noncommittal tone.
Then Gorgas answered in a phrase she had never before used in speaking to
her elders. It was the reply of servants and underlings; something she knew
should not be said, but it came unbidden to her lips.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
Instantly she was aware of having surrendered her will completely to the
overpowering superiority of the woman before her. Her face flamed; she
would have given all she possessed to have recalled the expression; but it
was out, and she was condemned. From afar she heard the quiet explanation
from Miss Warren that young ladies should not say “yes, ma’am”; they
should say, “Yes, Miss Warren.” All of which she knew by instinct, yet she
could offer no explanation. She was suffused with shame.
“It is too late to ask you to go home and change,” Miss Warren spoke kindly
as she ushered Gorgas into the house and showed her the way to the water-
taps. “Fortunately we have a few proper skirts in the lockers that you may
wear over your—uh—riding costume. While you are getting refreshed I
will have Miss Lewis find one for you.”
Meekly Gorgas let herself be decked in a faded blue serge skirt, which
bulged uncomfortably and succeeded in taking out of her the remaining
grains of spirit. If she had entertained any thought of walking through the
spacious doorway and bolting for Gyp and freedom, that inharmonious skirt
tethered her to the spot like a chain anchor.
She sat on a bench under a window in the wide corridor. A teacher or two
came in.
“Bon jour!” they greeted Miss Warren, who bon-joured them in return. “Old
Bong-joor,” Gorgas remembered, was one of the private names for Miss
Warren among the alumnæ. Other French phrases, mainly about the
weather, were passed back and forward. Gorgas recognized them instantly
as by-words among the Warren graduates, and she knew that they were not
quite French. At least it was not Bardek’s way of greeting. That same type
of mystic language was leveled at the first few early pupils. They replied in
kind, and seemed to know what was expected of them.
“Bon jour, Harriet.”
“Bon jour, Ma-de-moi-selle Warren.”
“Tu est arrivé de bonne heure.”
“Oui, Ma-de-moi-selle Warren.”
“C’est bon, Harriet.”
“Oui, Ma-de-moi-selle Warren.”
There was something comic in the picture presented. The little girls stood at
rigid attention and recited their trite phrases, keeping diplomatically to the
plain oui or non, and so added to the glory of “The Misses Warren’s French
and English School for Young Ladies.” Here was the echo far off in
America of a one-time supremacy of French as the language of the upper
classes of Europe. Tag-rags of the language lingered for awhile in novels,
until it finally died out and was deposited in the back pages of the old
Webster dictionary, where the proletariat may still find the meaning of such
recondite phrases as “entre nous,” and “on dit.”
“I wish you to know one of our new girls,” Miss Warren would say
occasionally after the French pass-words had been given and returned.
“This is Miss Gorgas Levering.”
“We welcome you to our school,” the well drilled young ladies would
recite, step two steps forward, shake hands like a drill sergeant, bow and
retire to a room set apart for assembly.
More “Bon jours” went on until about thirty girls, ranging from ten to
eighteen, had assembled. Gorgas was ushered in with the others and given a
seat. A bell was tapped somewhere in the house; the polite unnatural
murmur hushed. Another bell tapped; the girls rose and stood waiting for
the customary prayer, but a clatter in the hall turned heads and set very
natural tongues a-wagging. Two or three smart taps on the bell brought only
partial order. A heavy voice in the hallway caused smiles of recognition.
“Am I late again?” it cried impatiently.
The words of one of the teachers could not be heard, but the reply of the
late-comer was quite clear.
“Darn it, I’m always late!” the heavy voice boomed out. “Your old clock’s
wrong. I know I started in plenty of time this morning.”
“Bea Wilcox!” The name was uttered aloud by several excited girls. Miss
Warren called the group smartly to attention and requested Miss Lewis to
see that proper care was taken of the unruly late-comer, but while heads
turned to the front dutifully and silence came, the joyful wreaths on the
faces were not so easily ordered away. Bea Wilcox was the one rift in the
morning’s respectable gloom.
“I’m sorry, Miss Warren,” Bea exclaimed comfortingly as she tore off her
gloves and took her place in assembly. “I tried to get here, honest I did.
Your clock’s awful fast.”
“If you please, Miss Wilcox,” the principal assumed her deadliest tones,
“we prefer to hear your excuses in private. And I wish you would soften
down your very—uh—heavy voice; and please do not say ‘awful?’”
A chill passed over the room, thawed instantly by Bea.
“Oh, all right,” she chirped in cheery basso. “But it ain’t my fault if the
clock’s wrong; is it?”
“If you will be so good as not to speak. And pray remember that ‘ain’t’ is
not good English.”
“Oh, ain’t it?” she inquired pleasantly, adding, as if to her compatriots, “but
I bet the thingembob’s off the pendulum?”
“Miss Wilcox!” the command was peremptory.
“Yes’m?”
The “yes’m” was most deferential. It was meant to be. Miss Wilcox was the
big, muscular type of girl that goes in for athletics, cares little for books,
loving rather to strive muscle against muscle than to swaddle and grow
prim and become self-conscious of nose and eyelash. These athletic girls
are glorious at tennis and hockey—Bea Wilcox, at fifteen, was a wonder at
both sports; she could even bat and play first-base like a man—but they are
not usually considered refined. Delicate intellectual shadings they do not
always perceive. Her “yes’m” was a rough attempt at respect, but it drew a
titter from the precise young ladies.
The titter from the comic “yes’m” had hardly died out before a far-off bell,
tolling lazily, proclaimed that in at least one church tower a belated nine-
o’clock was being celebrated.
“There!” cried Miss Wilcox, striking a listening attitude. “Listen! D’y’ hear
that! Ah! ha! Miss Warren! We always go by that bell. I told you you were
fast.”
“You will kindly leave the room, Miss Wilcox,” Miss Warren spoke with
dignified forbearance. “Pray, go to my office.”
“Now, what have I done!” The young lady moved belligerently toward the
hallway. “Always getting jumped on for doin’ nothin’.”
What had she done? Gorgas asked herself. But she did not ask aloud. Nor
did anyone else. Thirty youngsters watched the unlucky Wilcox girl flounce
out of the room, each knowing that it would mean a long lecture, a
detention after school, the punishment of much memorization of Bible
verses, and perhaps the writing out of a thousand replicas of the sentence,
“Children should be seen and not heard”; and certainly it would mean a
letter to the elder Wilcoxes, in which Bea would not appear a heroine. There
was no protest from her own mates, except the mute flash of understanding
from one to the other which implied that here was one more irresistible
victory of authority over justice.
Gorgas found herself marching in a silent line—silent save for some furtive
whispering as they turned safe corners in hall or stairway—supervised by
ferret-eyed teachers. She was tolled off to a group that met in one of the
western rooms on the second floor. Trees—big chestnuts—shot above the
windows and left a view of lawn and rising hill beyond; and some of their
leaves brushed just beyond reach, so that they could be heard distinctly as
they whisked back and forth against the house.
Teachers came and went. They heard lessons mainly, and gave marks in a
book for every word spoken. While they were gracious in a sort of
unbending way, they seemed ever alert, like a Trappist lady superior, to
catch someone breaking the eternal vow of silence. Even as they relieved
one another on guard, they would watch the class with worried, roving eyes,
until the last reluctant moment. That vigilance crept into their faces; it
labeled them wherever they went, even in their vacations!
Gorgas was mercifully permitted to look on during the long hours of that
first day, although she was given detailed instructions for the lessons that
were to be learned by the morrow. There was a long spelling list, including
Cambodia, peristyle, ratiocination, caryatid, and other hard ones; a list of
the mountains of the world with the exact height of each; a section of
American history to be memorized—the story of John Smith and
Pocahontas, which nobody believes nowadays—the conjugation of several
French verbs, and some problem in arithmetic which aimed to discover that
if fourteen men working six hours a day could dig a ditch four feet wide, six
feet deep and ten feet long in three days, how many men working four days,
seven hours a day, it would require to dig a ditch three feet wide, five feet
deep and twelve feet long. And there was “literature”: the memorization of
the dates of birth and death of Cotton Mather and his contemporaries.
The French class offered hope at first. Mlle. Schwartz—German-Swiss—
looked French as she bobbed into the room, a vivacious, worried little
woman. She said, “I hopp you do know the vairbs today.” It was a vain
“hopp.” The pièce de resistance was a future perfect:
I shall have been regarded,
Thou shalt have been regarded,
He shall have been regarded.
Gorgas, who knew French, found the phrase new. She wondered if anyone
would ever need to “have been regarded.” But to Mlle. Schwartz it was the
open sesame to all of French; that and its even more bristling negative
interrogative:
Shall I not have been regarded?
Shalt thou not have been regarded? etc.
The prize of Mlle. Schwartz’s praise went to a little be-spectacled girl on
the front row who knew her “shall-have-been-regarded’s” backward and
forwards.
“Ah! Bessie,” Mlle. Schwartz would pounce on her in despair of the others,
“the past anterior!” Bessie knew the past anterior. “The pluperfect!” Bessie
knew the pluperfect. And the subjunctive, and the indicative interrogative.
Gorgas felt ashamed. She knew no French, after all! In spite of all her
chatter with Bardek, she was ignorant of the language. So she edged over to
the Bessie girl at the fifteen minute recess, shyly, as one would toward a
superior.
“It was beautiful,” Gorgas spoke quickly in French, a nervous tribute to the
perfect scholar. “Ah! how it was beautiful, the conjugations which you
know so well!”
“Huh?” Bessie looked across her spectacles. She was munching a bun, and
spoke with difficulty.
“The French that you know so wonderfully!” Gorgas kept eagerly to the
French. “I speak it and read it, but I never knew about the conjugations. Is it
very hard? When I heard you speak I was ashamed not to know them. They
all seemed so familiar, yet I did not know them.”
“Don’t she talk funny!” Bessie smiled weakly at the group beside her. Then
she added, “I don’t understand her. Is it some foreign language?”
“But you know French!”
“Was that French what you just spoke?”
“Yes.”
“Gee! girls!” Bessie looked about her. “She can talk in French!”
“But you do, too,” Gorgas was fearful of being alone in this.
“Me?” inquired Bessie. “No. I don’t know any speakin’ French. I only
know conjugations. Speakin’ French don’t come for years—not till you get
to college.”
A heavy voice interrupted. It came from across the lawn.
“Whoo-oo!” it called joyfully and drew nearer. The owner was loping in
ungainly bounds. “I’m let out!” Bea Wilcox shouted. Then she glanced at
the office corridors and lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper which
penetrated almost as far as her normal tones. “I’m loose! Don’t come too
near, everybody.” She put her long arms around the nearest girls, one of
whom was Gorgas, and hugged them to her. “I’m dangerous, I am! Old
Bong-joor said I was—the sweet old Lavender-Box. She said I was to be
par-tic-u-lar-ly careful”—old Bong-joor was being imitated now—“not to
obflusticate the fiddlesticks of these deah innocent guhls, especially the
young lady, Miss, uh, Brownface, who had just enrolled. Where’s
Brownface?”
Brownface was being hugged gloriously by Bea’s strong right arm.
“Oh! Oh!” Bea cried as she loosed the other arm and hugged Gorgas to her.
“Be careful, Browny. Don’t get too close to me. I’m dangerous!” Back and
forth she rocked Gorgas. “I’m ketchin’. I’m the human colery morbus.”
“And she can talk in French,” piped up Bessie of the spectacles.
Bea thrust Gorgas at arms length.
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Honest?”
“Yes.”
“Is it ketchin’?” This with mock fear.
Only laughter answered this question.
“Well, I want it to be.” Bea nodded her head vindictively. “I want to ketch a
whole lot of it. Old Bong-joor gave me ten pages of French exercises to
write out. Browny, you’re my lucky stone. I’m going to love you.” She
grabbed Gorgas once more and rocked her like a baby, “Will you do every
one of them for me?”
Gorgas said she would be glad to help.
“Help?” croaked Bea. “I don’t want help. I just want you to do the whole
biz for me. I can’t even punctuate in French. And see here, Bessie Four-
eyes,” she reached forward with her foot and drew that lady nearer, “if
anybody ‘spills’ this to Bong-joor—anybody, mind; I’m not sayin’ who—
they’ll have their backbones taken out very carefully and dusted off—bone
by bone.”
The good arm never left Gorgas. It protected her and warmed her and
temporarily drove off the chill of the school-house.
 X
HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS

BUT even the impetuous friendliness of Bea Wilcox could not quite dispel
the chill of the school-house. Until some arrangements could be made for
afternoon hours at the Applied Arts School Gorgas was to spend her whole
day at the Warren School. They were hours of dreary inactivity, enforced
silence, enforced immobility; and “lessons” that appealed to no normal
healthy instinct.
In two weeks Gorgas rebelled. Every night she had memorized dutifully the
odds and ends of unprofitable facts that had been detailed for home study.
But they would not stay fixed in her mind. She knew the exact height in feet
of Mt. Etna, the list of the counties of her native State with the name of the
chief city, innumerable pages of a stupid political history of the United
States, lists of births and deaths, and the population of a score of cities.
Bessie and her tribe, weaklings physically, shone in the class-room. They
“knew” everything. They were eager to display and greedy for book-facts;
but they never questioned the usefulness of anything.
“The population of New York city, Miss Levering, please?” Miss Lewis, the
geography teacher, was quizzing.
“May I ask, Miss Lewis,” Gorgas plucked up courage to inquire, “why
anyone should have to know that?”
“Please do not be impertinent, Miss Levering.”
Miss Lewis was not a good disciplinarian and she knew it. A native
graciousness and meekness prevented her from succeeding in quelling
pupils; but she struggled hard to dominate.
“Oh, I don’t mean to be impertinent,” Gorgas went on eagerly. “But
population is always changing. Our book tells us the number of people who
lived in New York, but only for 1880. Why, that was eight years ago! With
millions of immigrants and—uh—births, you know, it must be much bigger
now. When you were a school girl you had to memorize populations, but,
you see, they’re of no use now. We’ll have to do it all over again after the
census of 1890; won’t we?”
“I—I—well, I suppose so; yes,” Miss Lewis had never questioned the
traditional pabulum of the school course. She was not of courageous mould.
“But I am afraid you will have to learn your lessons just the same. So
kindly answer my question: what is the population of New York?”
“But, don’t you see,” Gorgas did not notice the eager movement among her
classmates, who took sides instinctively in favor of every rebellion against
authority; nor did she see the weak look of fear and determination in the
eyes of her teacher. “But don’t you see, no one can tell? And what do you
mean by New York city? All the people who live there? Or the people who
visit New York—they say there are thousands and thousands of visitors.
And what about Brooklyn and Jersey City—I’ve been looking at the map—
it’s all one big city. I know a man who lives in New Jersey who has his
business in New York, and he says there are thousands like him. How can
you tell how many there are in New York city this minute? Nobody could
possibly count them.”
“If you do not know your lesson, Miss Levering, I must ask you to be
seated.”
“But you don’t understand,” Gorgas was enthusiastic in her childlike
earnestness. “Nobody knows that lesson. Even you don’t know it, Miss
Lewis.”
All might have been well, but, unfortunately, the class broke into an
unpremeditated whoop. Tappings on the desk brought no respect for
authority. The youngsters saw nothing but lovely audacious baiting in
Gorgas’ innocent speech.
The tumult brought Miss Warren to the door. Gorgas was still standing,
conscious now, as evidenced by her flushed face, that she had caused
trouble. Silence fell like a blight on the group; one youngster tugged at
Gorgas’ skirt, aiming to be helpful; and another risked punishment by
boldly whispering that “Bong-joor” was at the door.
But Gorgas could not retreat. That would be to acknowledge wrongdoing.
So she not only stood her ground, but continued speaking.
“I don’t see the use of it, Miss Lewis, really I don’t.”
“What is it that the young lady does not see the use of?” Miss Warren
inquired majestically. Even Gorgas knew from the tone that she was already
judged and destined for her first punishment. Miss Lewis lamely tried to put
the case; she wanted to be fair, but her little four hundred dollars a year, her
very life, in fact, was at issue; she could see failure hovering before her, so
she plucked up a borrowed strength from the orderly class and threw the
blame upon Gorgas.
Miss Warren was quite calm. “I have noticed that Miss Levering, unlike her
sister, who was a great credit to our school, does not easily conform to
rules. She does not keep a good ‘line,’ and I notice that she talks to others in
the halls. I had meant to speak to her about this, and other matters that have
come to my attention, but preferred to wait, hoping that as she was new to
us she would eventually understand and submit to authority. But it seems
that my forbearance was a mistake. We cannot have rebellious spirits in our
school, Miss Lewis. It would not be fair to the parents who have entrusted
to us the moral responsibility of training their children and who look upon
our school as an environment free from contaminating influences. At recess
time, Miss Lewis, will you be so good as to send the young lady to my
office?”
“I have done nothing wrong, Miss Warren,” Gorgas stirred her nervous
tongue to say.
Miss Warren fixed her with a smile.
“I can quite comprehend,” she said, “that you think you have done nothing
wrong. However, your parents, wisely or not, have permitted us to be the
sole judge in such matters. You will find us very fair and very just; and also
very firm.”
The interview with Miss Warren was full of the same numbing type of
monologue. But no other “punishment” followed. Gorgas was led to feel
that she was on probation; that mercy had been shown to her ignorance of
the rights of constituted authority; and that her future stay in the school
would be entirely dependent on herself. In the whole interview Gorgas
spoke not a single word.
But she raged, nevertheless, at the public humiliation. In the recess periods
the girls hailed her with delight, but she got no joy from that. Mistily she
thought of Bardek and the free play of thought that he allowed, by which
she learned prodigiously every minute; and she thought of Allen Blynn,
who treated her as a human being and opened up springs of intellectual
delight for her thirsty soul; and even of Leopold, who talked science with
her as if she were a colleague. And in none of her conversations with those
men had there been aught of heights of mountains, and boundaries of
counties, and populations of cities.
One evening, when she had been struggling to memorize a list of uses of the
French subjunctive, she resolved to rebel. Leopold had dropped in and had
wasted the best part of her study period by chattering with her in French.
Together they had reviewed the French lesson for the morrow and agreed
that for them the French subjunctive did not exist.
“Even the French do not know those rules,” he told her. “And many persons
know them perfectly without knowing French at all.”
“Then I will not learn them,” Gorgas closed her book abruptly.
“I wouldn’t do that!” he laughed. “Miss Warren will send you kiting. And
then what will you do?”
“I will leave school,” she decided. “I can’t breathe in that place.”
But she resolved to tell Allen Blynn first. It grieved her to disappoint him;
so she would not take the decisive step until she had informed him of all the
necessities of the case. He had certain rights, she admitted.
But Allen Blynn was hard to find. His visits to the Leverings had been most
infrequent and casual. A suspicion had come to her sensitive soul that he
had preferred not to see much of her. Her entrances had usually been the
sign for his leave-takings.
She tried to get courage to go directly to him; she had even got so far as the
house; but always she fled. So she took the weak course and wrote him:
Dear Mr. Blynn:
I am going to leave school immediately.
I remain, Very sincerely yours,

G L .
The next mail brought an answer.
 Dear Miss Gorgas:
You are not going to do anything of the sort—at least not until
we have had a good talk on Saturday afternoon, beginning
promptly at three o’clock.
I also remain,
Very sincerely but very firmly yours,

A B .
On Saturday afternoon she was waiting for him on the old-fashioned settle
before the door of her home.
“Hello, missy!” he called to her from the gate. “When do you graduate?”
“S-sh!” she whispered, and nodded toward the house.
As he drew near he gave a mock whisper in return, “I’ve figured it out that
they must have promoted you a class every two days and a half. So you’re
to graduate immediately. Tell me about it.”
“We’ve got to walk,” she spoke low.
“Whither, fellow conspirator.”
“To the tennis-courts.”
“Ah!” he mimicked an actor, “’twas there we met.”
“This is no joke,” she declined to catch his spirit. “I’m going to quit.”
It was October and the tennis-courts were bare; so they had the field to
themselves as they sat on the home-made judge’s bench.
“‘Begin at the beginning,’” said Blynn, “as the King said to the White
Rabbit, ‘go on until you come to the end, and then stop.’”
The tale was unfolded, populations, scoldings, subjunctive and all.
Blynn laughed. “Is it as bad as that? I had no idea the school was such a
dungeon. Why, it is supposed to be a first-class institution! I’ll never
believe another prospectus.”
“Do you know, Mr. Blynn, how many people are in New York city at this
minute?”
“Bless my soul, no!” he shook his head ruefully. “I shouldn’t want to have
that on my conscience. It’s much easier to take the count of 1880.”
“But that wasn’t right, even in 1880,” she continued seriously.
“Yes,” he laughed; “New York has grown bigger even while we’ve been
talking; or maybe smaller, for half the town may have gone to Coney Island
for over Sunday.”
“What does it matter how many people live in New York?” she asked. “I
want to know; really. Miss Warren thinks it very important—although she
doesn’t know herself how many were there even in 1880.”
“Well, bless my soul, did you ask her?”
“Yes; she told me to come in and see her if ever I wanted to know anything.
So one morning I asked her about New York. She made a guess, but she
was thousands off. ‘Excuse me, Miss Warren,’ I said—I was sticky with
politeness, ‘but I think that’s what it was in 1820. I’m sure it’s grown bigger
every year since that time; but I suppose that was the correct answer when
you went to school.’”
“Ha! And what did she say to that?”
“She looked me over very carefully, but decided that I didn’t look bright
enough. I didn’t. I flattened my face out—this way.” Her face took on the
appearance of a dull image; life went out of her eyes.
“Bless my soul, Gorgas, don’t! You look feeble-minded!” And Gorgas knew
that Allen Blynn was paying the actress a stupendous compliment. “Go
on!” he said. “Go on! This is great!”
“Then I told her the right number, but pretended to guess it—1,202,299—
that’s what the book says, anyway. All the time she was hunting for a
geography. ‘I’m sure that is not right, Miss Levering,’ but it was: 1,202,299.
She hated me for knowing it, too; I could see it in her eye, and I just knew
she wouldn’t let me stay right. ‘In 1880,’ I helped her. ‘Ah!’ she swallowed
the bait. ‘Of course, Miss Levering, in 1880! But that was eight years ago.
Since then, I have no doubt, it has increased considerably—considerably.’
‘How much is it now, Miss Warren?’ I asked as if she knew everything;
‘how much exactly?’ She swelled up and said, ‘Well, we shan’t be able to
tell that until the next census is completed. Of course, no one knows
exactly.’”
“Treason!” cried Blynn. “She ought to have been scolded for that speech!”
“And in public!” Gorgas was still vibrating from that open rebuke. “That’s
why I got my dressing down before the whole class, too. I’ll never forgive
her for that. It was beastly. So I just said sweetly, ‘I am so glad you say that,
Miss Warren. That’s what I told Miss Lewis, but she said it was still
1,202,299. It’s funny, too,’ I went on; ‘for that’s what you reprimanded me
for before the class. Thank you so much. Goodby,’ and I shot out before she
could recover.”
“That’s very subtle,” Blynn commented. “Do you really think she caught
your jab?”
“Oh, yes indeedy! If you could see the beady look in old Bong-jour’s eye
the next morning. She was ready for me, but so was I. When she bong-
joured me I bong-joured her back. Bong-jour! Huh! She doesn’t know
French, either.”
“Of course, she doesn’t,” Blynn chuckled. “Most of that school French is
the woodenest stuff. How did you find out, Missy?”
“Oh, when she Bong-joured me that morning, I came back fast. It took her
off her pins. I asked her questions in French, and then told her in English
that she hadn’t answered ’em. I came later than the rest so as there’d be a
crowd around. I made her own up that she couldn’t follow me. She tried to
talk me down high-and-mighty-like, and pretend that my French was bad;
but I jabbered right off to Mlle. Schwartz. Ma’m’selle isn’t very strong on
the French herself—”
“What! Another fraud!”
“Well, she can do the French all right, but she’s really German and got her
French mostly out of books. But she’s a demon on conjugations and rules.”
“Well, did Ma’m’selle stand by you?”
“You bet. I just went a little slower for her. She’s afraid of me—more afraid
of me than she is of Bong-jour—so she always slams French back at me, to
show she understands.”